A new survey has found that majority of business executives expect to see greater progress from their IT organisations in deploying a range of technologies to increase agility, with 93% of them saying that tech is more important than it was five years ago.

In the survey of more than 250 business executives, 70% of respondents cited technology as increasingly important, while 52% said their IT innovation is poor or narrowly progressing.

About 58% described their transition as poor or only making moderate headway, with just 42% noting that their IT groups are doing a good job of becoming a more strategic, responsive and valued business partner.

The survey found that 85% of business line executives are devoting more time to committing to understanding the significance of technologies.

They also anticipate seeing benefits from data centres and cloud transformation, particularly increased responsiveness, better cost efficiencies and faster times to market.

About 48% expected to upgrade their data centres, while another 44 percent anticipating moving to a hybrid IT model involving both data centers and the Cloud.

The respondents also viewed Internet of Things as the most likely to create differentiation and business value for their organisations, followed by web models, social media data mining, analytics and smart mobile devices and apps.

Business Performance Innovation (BPI) Network carried out the survey, which is sponsored by ICT solutions and services provider Dimension Data.

BPI Network head of thought leadership Dave Murray said: "From the C-suite to operational units, senior managers are eager to see progress in implementing a broad range of technologies that increase their agility, improve customer experience, and make their companies more competitive.

"We believe this constitutes a new scorecard for IT, with greater emphasis on IT’s role in driving business growth and market differentiation."